CORAL: ANIMAL, MINERAL OR VEGETABLE?

What is coral? When you see pictures in National Geographic of huge rock like things in the ocean with fish swimming all around, is that coral? Well, sort of. That is a coral reef.

Coral is an animal that belongs to the phylum cnidaria. A phylum is a group that scientists place animals in which share certain characteristics. Cnidarians are radially symmetric, which means that they are the same all the way around, 360 degrees! They are built like sacs with a hole in one end that is surrounded by stinging tentacles. Jellyfish are cnidaria. Now, you are probably thinking, jellyfish don't look anything like what I thought coral was! That's because the most common pictures of coral are colonies called reefs.

Coral Reefs